Louis the German

King of Germany (r. 843-876)

• Born: c. 804
• Birthplace: Possibly Aquitaine (now in France)
• Died: August 28, 0876
• Place of death: Frankfurt (now in Germany)

As the ruler who founded the kingdom that later became known as Germany, Louis, while supporting the idea of the unity of the Carolingian Empire, protected his kingdom from the covetousness of his relatives, patronized the Church, and defended his lands from numerous attacks by such peoples as the Vikings, Hungarians, Bohemians, Moravians, and Slavs.

Early Life

Louis the German was the third son of Louis the Pious and Ermengard. His father, the third son of Charlemagne, would become sole ruler of the Carolingian Empire in 814. His mother was the daughter of a government official, Count Ingram. Probably Louis spent most of his early years at the courts of his father and grandfather. When Charlemagne died, Louis the Pious had to make numerous arrangements for the governance of the empire. The new emperor granted the rule of Bavaria and Aquitaine to his two eldest legitimate sons, Lothair and Pépin, respectively. Because of his youth, Louis continued to live in his father’s household.

Three years later, Louis the Pious issued the Ordinatio Imperii of 817, in which he proclaimed the disposition of the empire for the remainder of his reign as well as after his death. Louis received Bavaria, which Lothair had ruled since 814. On the death of the emperor, Louis’s share of the empire was to be increased to include Carinthia and the Bohemian, Slavic, and Avar marches. Lothair would act as coemperor and succeed their father as sole emperor, who would then maintain a loose supervision over the kingdoms ruled by his Carolingian relatives. In the future, the various Carolingian kingdoms were to be passed on without further subdivision. Thus, Louis the Pious was able to preserve the unity of the empire while conforming to the Frankish practice of dividing a man’s patrimony equally among his sons.

From 817 to early 832, Louis acted as a loyal son and his father’s lieutenant. At eighteen, he commanded a flank of the expedition that Louis the Pious mounted against Brittany in 824. Beginning in 825, Louis actively governed Bavaria while annually returning to France to attend his father’s court. Some of his attention was spent on wars against the Slavs in 825 and the Bulgars in 828 that accomplished little. In 827, Louis married Emma, a daughter of Count Welf, who was also the father of Judith of Bavaria. Nine years earlier, the emperor had married Judith, by whom he had a son, Charles the Bald, in 823. During the summer of 829, Louis the Pious took two actions that produced dissension in both the royal family and the government. He granted some lands to Charles, his youngest son, and replaced a number of his governmental officials. The result was a revolt led by the displaced ministers, who seized control of the government and gained the support of Lothair and Pépin. Despite being under house arrest, Louis the Pious arranged an understanding with Pépin and Louis and in October, 830, reclaimed control of the empire’s government.

From 829 until 843, the rule of the empire would be contested by Louis the Pious’s sons and elements of the empire’s governmental bureaucracy. On recovering the government, the emperor sent Lothair to Italy and rewarded Pépin, Louis, and Charles with more lands. To Louis’s lands were added Thuringia, Saxony, Frisia, Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, most of Austrasia, and part of Neustria. On the emperor’s death, the three brothers would be allowed to act independently of one another, to aid one another in defense of the empire’s borders and the Roman church, and to ignore Lothair, who would rule in Italy. Furthermore, the emperor expected his three younger sons to remain loyal or he would punish them by removing lands from their rule. Distrust had become so great on all sides, however, that the remaining decade of the emperor’s life was to see continual plotting and intermittent rebellions by his three older sons.

Life’s Work

From 832 onward, Louis the German followed a policy of protecting his German lands while occasionally acting as a mediator in family disputes. During the 830’, Louis often found himself in opposition to his father’s plans and particularly to those concerning Charles. After Pépin began a revolt late in 831, Louis made plans to invade Alamannia, an area recently given to Charles that contained a number of Welf estates, in early 832. When the emperor entered Bavaria in May, Louis sought and obtained a pardon. The spring of 833 saw an attempt by Lothair, Pépin, and Louis to seize the empire’s government from their father. Supported by Pope Gregory IV and various imperial ministers, the three brothers confronted their father at Rothfield. With his followers slipping away, the emperor surrendered. Lothair was declared sole emperor, and Louis the German returned to Bavaria in the late summer.

When Lothair tried to harass his father into becoming a monk, Louis, somewhat distressed by this, and Pépin marched on Paris, where Lothair and their father were. Lothair fled, leaving Louis the Pious to reclaim the emperorship in early March, 834. Then, in October, 837, the emperor gave to Charles the territories between the Seine and Meuse Rivers in northeast France, lands that had been held at different times by Lothair and Louis the German. In late 838, after a meeting with Lothair and two with the emperor, Louis the German declared war against his father; this war continued until his father’s death in June, 840. In the spring of 839, Louis the Pious again divided the empire; this time it was evenly split between Lothair and Charles, while Louis the German was allowed only the rule of Bavaria.

With the emperor’s death, Lothair continued the war against his brother Louis, who faced a Saxon revolt at the same time. Unable to arrange an accord with Lothair, Charles reluctantly joined Louis. On June 25, 841, at Fontenoy, they defeated Lothair, who was again defeated in September. To protect themselves and defeat Lothair, at Strasbourg on February 14, 842, Louis and Charles exchanged the famous Strasbourg oaths that bound them together in a defensive alliance against Lothair. By operating together, Louis and Charles forced Lothair to open negotiations. At a meeting near Mâcon on June 15, the three brothers agreed to divide the empire into three equal parts. A year of further discussions among their representatives produced the Treaty of Verdun in August, 843. By this treaty, Louis retained the Germanic territories east of the Rhine plus three counties to the west of it and the whole of Alamannia; Charles kept the French kingdom; and Lothair held Italy, plus a corridor of counties between his brothers’ kingdoms, as well as continuing his use of the title of emperor. The political unity of the Carolingian Empire had come to an end.

With the passage of time, the Treaty of Verdun became the cornerstone of the kingdom of Germany. Louis’s immediate concerns were the protection of his borders from the Vikings and various peoples to the east, the maintenance of the Church, and future relations with his brothers. For the most part, the wars against the Bohemians, Moravians, and Slavs were successful. The Vikings, however, remained a threat to both Germany and the rest of the Carolingian lands, despite Louis’s efforts to keep them at bay. Within Germany, Louis supported the Church by means of numerous grants, received the support of his clergy, and endorsed its efforts to convert the neighboring pagan peoples. Nevertheless, it was the clergy of Aquitaine in the 850’s and those of northeastern France between 858 and 860 who thwarted the attempts of segments of the Aquitanian and French populations to replace Charles the Bald with Louis.

During the dozen years between the settlement at Verdun and the death of Lothair in 855, relations among the three brothers were precarious. At Meerssen in March, 847, the brothers agreed to cooperate against external threats and in sorting out internal problems that were common to the kingdoms. Yet the distrust among them, especially between Charles and Lothair, clouded the arrangement. After attempts in 849 and 850 to patch up differences, the brothers in May, 851, again at Meerssen, came to a consensus. As relations between Lothair and Charles improved, Louis began to drift away from them. Early in 855, Louis sent his eldest son, Louis the Younger, to assist the Aquitanians in a revolt against Charles. The rebellion’s failure and a mediation undertaken by Lothair restored peace. Lothair then died, leaving a complex division of his lands that would dominate the rest of his brother Louis’s life.

Lothair had divided his kingdom equally among his three sons, Emperor Louis II in Italy, Charles, king of Provence, and Lothair II, king of Lotharingia, all of whom would have no legitimate sons. Because of the weaknesses of their small kingdoms, Lothair’s sons found themselves somewhat at the mercy of their two uncles. A party to a barren marriage and directly caught between the large kingdoms of Louis the German and Charles the Bald, Lothair II tried to divorce his wife and marry his mistress. Actions by his uncles and the Papacy blocked these efforts, thereby virtually ensuring that Lothair’s kingdom would fall at his death to his two uncles. Louis the German was ill when Lothair II died in August, 869, and so could not forestall Charles the Bald’s seizure of Lotharingia. A year later to the day, August 8, 870, faced with the possibility of an attack by Louis the German, Charles agreed to honor an arrangement the two had made in 869 to partition Lotharingia. By this Treaty of Meerssen, the kingdom was split from north to south along a line that would be disputed again and again in future centuries. Because Emperor Louis II had only a female heir, the possibility of obtaining the emperorship came to interest his two uncles. Engelberga, Louis II’s wife, favored Louis the German’s ambitions in this regard, while Popes Hadrian III and John VIII sided with Charles the Bald. Although Engelberga claimed after her husband’s death that his wish was for Carloman, Louis the German’s eldest son, to have the emperorship, Charles the Bald, combining diplomacy and fighting skill, outmaneuvered his brother’s armies and raced to Rome in late 875. As Pope John crowned Charles emperor on Christmas Day, Louis the German with his son Louis the Younger was leading a fruitless invasion into France. The French magnates remained loyal to Charles, so Louis the German had to abandon his attack and return to Germany. After Charles and Pope John solidified the new emperor’s hold on Italy, on August 28, 876, they dispatched an embassy to meet with Louis the German. On that day, however, Louis had died at Frankfurt. Immediately Charles tried to negate the 870 Treaty of Meerssen by seizing Lorraine, only to be decisively defeated by Louis the Younger.

Significance

On balance, Louis the German achieved success as a medieval king. As a warrior, he had protected his lands from external threats from the east as well as from his brothers, Lothair and Charles the Bald. Louis overcame the several internal rebellions led by his sons in the early 860’, along with the occasional one by a magnate, with his position strengthened further. His reputation as a good ruler is evidenced by the willingness of various French magnates to seek him out as a king for both Aquitaine and France. His generosity to the German church resulted in its clergy’s continual support of their king, even at times against the wishes of the Papacy, which often involved itself in ecclesiastical affairs north of the Alps.

Of Louis the German’s private life, little is known. Indications are that he spent his youth in the household of Louis the Pious and possibly that of Charlemagne. How this experience developed his character is not clear, but through much of his life, Louis the German defended the concept of a unified empire, an idea supported in both households. Although Louis had no illegitimate children, as both Charlemagne and Louis the Pious had had, he did follow a common Carolingian policy regarding marriages of daughters. All three of his surviving daughters, Hildegard, Ermengard, and Bertha, were placed in nunneries and died unmarried. He allowed his sons at first to maintain relationships with mistresses; later they married the daughters of counts. His own death followed so quickly on that of Emma in January, 876, that one cannot be sure if he might have remarried.

Louis the German’s greatest accomplishment was the founding of a kingdom, Germany, that would survive as a separate entity. He provided it with three future kings, the youngest of whom, Charles the Fat, would become an emperor as well. By the time Louis’s line died out in 911, the concept of a German kingdom separate from the rest of the old Carolingian Empire was strong enough that the German magnates chose to remain distinct from troubled France and selected a German duke as their king.

The Carolingian Kings

Reign

• Ruler

687-714

• Pépin II of Heristal (mayor of Austrasia/Neustria)

714-719

• Plectrude (regent for Theudoald)

719-741

• Charles Martel (the Hammer; mayor of Austrasia/Neustria)

747-768

• Pépin III the Short (mayor of Neustria 741, king of all Franks 747)

768-814

• Charlemagne (king of Franks 768, emperor 800)

814-840

• Louis the Pious (king of Aquitaine, emperor)

840-855

• Lothair I (emperor)

843

• Treaty of Verdun divides Carolingian Empire into East Franks (Germany), West Franks (essentially France), and a southern and middle kingdom roughly corresponding to Provence, Burgundy, and Lorraine)

843-876

• Louis II the German (king of Germany)

843-877

• Charles II the Bald (king of Neustria 843, emperor 875)

855-875

• Louis II (emperor)

877-879

• Louis II (king of France)

879-882

• Louis III (king of France)

879-884

• Carloman (king of France)

884-887

• Charles III the Fat (king of France)

887-898

• Odo (Eudes; king of France)

887-899

• Arnulf (king of Germany 887, emperor 896)

891-894

• Guy of Spoleto (Wido, Guido; emperor)

892-898

• Lambert of Spoleto (emperor)

893-923

• Charles III the Simple (king of France)

915-923

• Berengar I of Friuli (emperor)

923-929?

• Robert I (king of France)

929-936

• Rudolf (king of France)

936-954

• Louis IV (king of France; Hugh the Great in power)

954-986

• Lothair (king of France; Hugh Capet in power 956)

986-987

• Louis V (king of France)

Note: The Carolingians ruled different parts of the Frankish kingdom, which accounts for overlapping regnal dates in this table. The term “emperor” refers to rule over what eventually came to be known as the Holy Roman Empire.

Bibliography

Cabaniss, Allen, trans. Son of Charlemagne: A Contemporary Life of Louis the Pious. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1961. Cabaniss has translated the ninth century Vita Hludovici, written by an anonymous author, probably of Louis the Pious’s household. This history provides considerable information about the emperor’s relations with all of his sons, including Louis the German. With it and Nithard’s account (below), the reader may develop a good picture of Louis the German’s early life.

Deanesly, Margaret. A History of Early Medieval Europe from 476 to 911. 1956. 2d ed. London: Methuen, 1960. Deanesly’s study provides an excellent introduction to the Carolingian period and the basic outline of Louis the German’s activities.

Eyck, Frank. Religion and Politics in German History: From the Beginnings to the French Revolution. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998. An analysis of how Germanic peoples preserved links with classical civilization through their ability to assimilate other cultures and peoples, from their alliances with eighth century popes through the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The initial bond between the Germanic rulers and popes turned to conflict as the Papacy gained power. Tables, maps, bibliography, index.

Gibson, Margaret, and Janet Nelson, eds. Charles the Bald: Court and Kingdom. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1981. This is a collection of twenty-one papers presented at a colloquium held in London in 1979, covering a wide range of subjects beyond Charles the Bald.

Halphen, Louis. Charlemagne and the Carolingian Empire. Translated by Giselle de Nie. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1977. Originally published in French in 1947, Halphen’s book is the basic work available in English on the ninth century. It details Louis the German’s relationships with his father and brothers and as such is the starting point for anyone interested in the first German king.

Jeep, John M., et al., eds. Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland, 2001. An A-Z encyclopedia that addresses all aspects of the German- and Dutch-speaking medieval world from 500 to 1500. Entries include individuals, events, and broad topics such as feudalism and pregnancy. Bibliographical references, index.

Moore, Robert Ian. The First European Revolution, c. 970-1215. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2000. According to the publisher, “a radical reassessment of Europe from the late tenth to the early thirteenth centuries [arguing that] the period witnessed the first true ’revolution’ in European society,” supported by transformation of the economy, family life, political power structures, and the rise of the non-Mediterranean cities. Bibliography, index.

Nelson, Janet L. Politics and Ritual in Early Medieval Europe. London: Hambledon Press, 1986. This collection of seventeen articles published since 1967 illustrates the complexity of the scholarship required to understand the world of Louis the German, who repeatedly is mentioned in its pages. Nelson is especially good on the institution of kingship and the narrative sources of the ninth century.

Nithard. “Histories.” In Carolingian Chronicles. Translated by Bernhard Walter Scholz with Barbara Rogers. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1970. Here is the basic source for the struggle between Louis the German and his brothers from 840 to 843. Reading it provides the reader with the flavor of the troubles that dogged the brothers through most of their lives.